[From nobody Wed Sep  6 10:13:42 2017
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Message-ID: <375FC4D8.C8B29F06@mindspring.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 09:59:53 -0400
From: "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@mindspring.com>
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To: David 24x <david24x@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: I was in Beijing when embassy bombed
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Thank you David, for you on-the-scene report.  It is specially valuable
as your observations are from a personal and independent perspective as
an American.  By definition you report is more reliable than
professional journalists.  Though it may not always be the case, the
sentiment of the politically conscious among the people matches quite
closely the official line on the matter.
I hope you enjoy your stay in China.  We need more people like you who
actually spend time inside China and help the people you work with
understand America better.

Henry

David 24x wrote:

> I arrived in Beijing on Saturday, May 8. I am a caucasian
> American man. I stayed in a hotel in north central Beijing, at
> the end of the 222 bus line. For six days I and my friend, a
> Chinese woman, traveled the buses and the mini-buses around the
> city, walked a lot, ate in restaurants patronized by city
> residents not tourists, and shopped in inexpensive stores. I
> don't speak Chinese, but occasionally I clowned with store clerks
> using pantomime and got a smile or a laugh. I doted over little
> children of strangers on the street or in a store, and the
> parents smiled with warmth.
>
> I was not even aware of the U.S. bombing of the embassy for three
> days, because I do not read Chinese. I did find a local English
> newspaper for English-speaking persons in Beijing (primarily
> aimed at foreigners teaching English and similar jobs). The
> stories in it made it very clear that the students demonstrated
> only after checking with both police and university authorities.
>
> The only event that MIGHT have been animosity is that someone on
> a crowded bus tossed a harmless little spitwad of paper at me.
> I'm not sure it was intended for me, and when I looked around,
> the probable thrower looked away from me instead of glaring at
> me.
>
> Perhaps some people seeing me distinguished between the U.S.
> government and the U.S. people. However, by immediate deed,
> practically no one except college students showed public reaction
> to the bombing. In the newspaper story mentioned above, the
> students who were quoted voiced the line that the embassy bombing
> was a wake-up call for China to develop its technology and
> industry even faster so that it would not have to suffer such
> humiliations. They also voice a feeling of closeness to the
> victims as people like themselves: college-educated
> professionals.
>
> _______________________________________________________________
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